


Constant

by BloomingMiracle (Luna264)



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Gen, Murder, Oneshot, Suicidal Thoughts, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29857257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luna264/pseuds/BloomingMiracle
Summary: These things are constant;Kaede Akamatsu wakes up when the light streams in through the slats in the locker door.Shuichi Saihara falls out of the locker next to hers.Inside the week, at least two people are going to die.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	Constant

The second time Kaede lives that horrible week, she’s not convinced she’ll be able to salvage it if she messes up again.

It soon turns out that a permanent failure state has never been an option.

There are things, now that Kaede knows. 

These things are constant;

Kaede Akamatsu wakes up when the light streams in through the slats in the locker door.

Shuichi Saihara falls out of the locker next to hers.

Inside the week, at least two people are going to die.

With these constants in mind, written on a rolling whiteboard she snagged from a classroom in the 27th week, she begins her tests.

(Kaede is not a scientist. She passed her science classes, yes, but it was a nearer thing than she'll admit to Miu in any week.)

She tests bringing Shuichi along a different route for introductions. She tests varying her social structure. She even tests leaving the locker room before Shuichi can free himself from his own locker.

That last one actually does change a few things— without that bumbling introduction, he doesn’t include her in his plan and she doesn’t actually kill Rantarou. It doesn’t make much of a difference, because Korekiyo kills her instead, and she (perhaps hypocritically) resolves to stop hanging out with him.

She begins to wonder if there’s any way she can prevent  that , too.

These things are constant;

Kaede Akamatsu wakes up when the light streams in through the slats in the locker door.

Shuichi Saihara falls out of the locker next to hers.

Inside the week, at least two people are going to die.

The first idea is to progress through the week without diverging from the template the first one had set, right up until the end. She even gathers all her supplies, to keep herself on track.

When she gets down to the library and Rantarou is  still dead, she comes to the horrible conclusion that she may not have even killed him all the times she thought she had.

(She still gets executed for it, which is  incredibly rude, in her professional, being executed opinion.)

The next loop, of course, Kaede risks looking crazy, and pretty much ensures that Miu will be Saying Things about her the whole week; she drags Shuichi  and Rantarou into her dorm room and tells them that she’s loved this week something like a hundred times now and if either of them have any advice at  all as to how to handle it she could really use the help.

They’re not really convinced. She can tell. But they humor her, which is more than she was really expecting.

Shuichi asks her to lay out the structure of the week, and she does, noting prominent discrepancies.

When she gets to the end, and explains her plot to kill the mastermind, she can’t look either of them in the eyes.

Rantarou is skeptical that someone might have that much foreknowledge of her actions. He considers humans to be wildly varied and unpredictable. Shuichi counters that they have no idea how long the ringleader of this whole situation might have been having them watched before bringing them here.

Kaede is killed in her sleep the night before the time limit expires, and she doesn’t know who it might have been. She hadn’t given either of the boys access to her room, so they’re not so much more prominently suspicious than anyone else.

These things are constant;

Kaede Akamatsu wakes up when the light streams in through the slats in the locker door.

Shuichi Saihara falls out of the locker next to hers.

Inside the week, at least two people are going to die.

She spends the next two weeks planning; each week, she will pick someone to get as close to as she can, to try and determine what may not add up with their stories. She’ll repeat this process ad infinitum, plotting a different victim in cycles to see how her targets react.

These are the things Kaede learns:

Tsumugi carries a pair of scissors with her in an inner pocket of her jacket, and seems to have a sixth sense for traps and poisons. For all intents and purposes, she is immortal, and incredibly  suspicious . 

Korekiyo also has an uncanny ability to detect death traps. Unlike Tsumugi, though, he can be taken by surprise if you know his usual routines. Ultimately, Kaede thinks he’s probably just weird.

Kokichi is uniquely devastated by the deaths of Rantarou and Shuichi, but he’s also exceptionally skilled at pretending he’s just goofing off. When he participates in the other investigations, he has a knack for pointing out her false alibis. One time, as they sit next to Shuichi’s corpse together, he asks her if it ever gets any easier. 

Miu has some serious trust issues, and literally cannot believe that people won’t abandon her if they have the option. Kaede wants to refer her to a therapist is over, although probably a different one than she’ll go to herself.

Kaito and Rantarou apparently grew up in the same town, although they’re trying to keep it on the down low in case anyone decides that would make them mutually suspicious. Kaede only finds out because he slips up and tells her one of Rantarous old embarrassing stories while they’re sharing laughs in the back yard of the institution.

Tenko is privately glad that there aren’t any bugs around, as she developed a crippling fear of bees in elementary school.

Gonta will never understand why she kills him, but he forgives her when she tearfully tries to explain that she’s just looking for a way out, a way to get everyone out, and she’s so, so sorry.

Ryoma hasn’t entirely lost his will to live, and won’t be able to entirely stop himself from struggling. Kaede will likely have a scratch that needs tending after their confrontation.

Angie doesn’t get any less strange. When Kaede kills her, the only thing she ever says is to ask who was in the bathroom "back at the beginning". When Kaede asks what she means, sometimes, she’ll just say that it’s her god’s question for Kaede.

Himiko is by far the quickest to die.

These things are constant;

Kaede Akamatsu wakes up when the light streams in through the slats in the locker door.

Shuichi Saihara falls out of the locker next to hers.

Inside the week, at least two people are going to die.

As time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to live with herself. Kaede stands in the kitchen some days, holding a knife and wondering if turning it on herself will make this cycle end.

She also wonders if the loops she’s left keep on going. Sometimes she likes to think so, that maybe a Rantarou she painted nails with teamed up with Kaito to lead everyone out safely, or that the Kirumi that taught her how to make tomato bisque is taking care of everyone else now that they’ve escaped.

Other times, she hopes that all of the pain she’s caused all these different versions of her friends isn’t haunting the edges of her deaths.

It’s the week she finds out that Maki is an assassin that she finally calls total bullshit on how good Tsumugi is at staying alive.

Kaede has killed Maki before. It’s difficult, and risky, and she’s died more times than she’s won, but she’s done it. A cosplayer should not be harder to kill than an assassin. It just doesn’t add up.

Kaede starts making plans. Testing things. After the eleventh week she refers to an event from a previous one with only polite confusion for her troubles, Kaede figures that Tsumugi  probably isn’t looping, too.

That means Kaede can move on to her next plan; trial and error.

These things are constant;

Kaede Akamatsu wakes up when the light streams in through the slats in the locker door.

Shuichi Saihara falls out of the locker next to hers.

Inside the week, at least two people are going to die.

She makes a couple of lists. 

Things that don’t work:

Death traps.

Direct assaults.

Staking out the secret door. 

Much of anything.

Things that get closer to working:

Following the events of the first week, before very suddenly deviating.

They’re very short lists.

Kaede recreates the first week, again, best as she can in her current state, and finds something interesting.

Briefly, around the time of Rantarou's death, Tsumugi goes to the bathroom by the cafeteria. The fact strikes a thought in her, and she briefly deviates to kill Angie again and confirm it.

Maybe Angie is listening to something beyond understanding after all.

Kaede plans and tests, plans and tests, each time getting closer and closer to eliminating the girl she’s surer and surer is responsible for her physical imprisonment, albeit not her temporal one.

Finally, she perfects her plan.

These things are constant;

Kaede Akamatsu wakes up when the light streams in through the slats in the locker door.

Shuichi Saihara falls out of the locker next to hers.

Inside the week, Tsumugi Shirogane is going to die.

Kaede is going to free her friends and take them home.


End file.
